Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for managing authentication in a wireless communication system while a subscriber identity module (SIM) or a Universal SIM (USIM) is not available.
Related Art
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3rd generation (3G) asynchronous mobile communication system operating in wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) based on European systems, global system for mobile communications (GSM) and general packet radio services (GPRS). A long-term evolution (LTE) of UMTS is specified by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) that standardized UMTS.
3GPP LTE is a technology for enabling high-speed packet communications. Many schemes have been proposed for the LTE objective including those that aim to reduce user and provider costs, improve service quality, and expand and improve coverage and system capacity. The 3GPP LTE requires reduced cost per bit, increased service availability, flexible use of a frequency band, a simple structure, an open interface, and adequate power consumption of a terminal as an upper-level requirement.
A universal integrated circuit card (UICC) is the smart card used in mobile terminals in GSM and UMTS networks. The UICC ensures the integrity and security of all kinds of personal data, and it typically holds a few hundred kilobytes of memory. With the advent of more services, the storage space will need to be larger.
The UICC (up to R99) was only able to manage one application at a time. In the case of cards used for telecommunication, this application was typically a subscriber identity module (SIM). As a result, the UICC (hardware) was dealing with only one application and always available for this application. However, when SIM application toolkit was introduced (with the possibility of small telecom applications), the “MORE TIME” command was created in order to be able to interrupt those little applications while providing authentication credential to network when required.
Accordingly, the UICC has become a multi-application platform from the R99 of the 3GPP specifications. At this stage, it is able to support multiple applications including SIM or universal SIM (USIM). Aside the telecom applications (SIM, USIM, ISIM . . . ), the UICC may support banking, transportation, other applications, etc. At some time, those additional applications may require the full process capability of the UICC, e.g. in order to process complex security algorithms Such process may last a few seconds, which is over 5-6 seconds delay provided by mobile networks to reply an authentication request.
Accordingly, a method for providing the possibility to authenticate a mobile station in a network may be required, even though the UICC interface is blocked by a long operation.